


24 hours when everything's perfect

by theskylarshippers (coyotestoryteller)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bisexual Alexander Hamilton, Blood and Injury, F/M, Gay John Laurens, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Scars, Shopping Malls, alex is an oblivious idiot, can't believe i forgot to put that one there, eliza & john are besties, more explanation in the first chapter, not during the story though before it begins, time freeze soulmate au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23322808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coyotestoryteller/pseuds/theskylarshippers
Summary: veery basic elams soulmate au.Eliza and Alex have been dating for over a year now. Eliza knows it won't last once she meets her soulmate, but she's going to enjoy every second she gets with him.Then he turns out to be her soulmate. She gets twenty-four hours to spend with him, 24 perfect hours, leading up to a close-to-perfect life with him. Or so she thinks.Alexander is hiding something.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Angelica Schuyler & Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler & Margaret "Peggy" Schuyler, John Laurens & Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a really self-indulgent time-freeze soulmate au. A break fic, if you will. Hopefully at least one person other than me really likes this. More in-depth explanation of how the time-freeze works within the first chapter.

Eliza ran downstairs, nearly tripping but righting herself, and burst into the kitchen. She paused for a moment to savor the aroma of melting butter, fresh fruit, and hot coffee, then walked across the kitchen calmly, avoiding bumping into her father at the stove, and took her seat, trying to contain her excitement. She had every reason to be excited. It was her birthday, after all. Her 18th birthday. 

She was about to meet her soulmate.

Well, not quite yet. She had to wait until 1:18 pm, the exact time of her birth. Right then, time would stop for everyone who wasn’t her or her soulmate, except if either of them tried to unfreeze someone. It would be difficult to have a good twenty-four hours with all the employees in every restaurant and store frozen in time, and some people wanted to show their soulmate to their families right away.

Eliza wasn’t planning to talk to her family about her soulmate immediately, though. She wanted to enjoy 24 hours with them, whoever they are, before the fallout at home and school. She had a boyfriend, after all.

Many people broke up with their significant others right before they turned eighteen. Eliza had decided to stay with Alex, if only because the senior prom was right before her birthday. Of course she’d dared to hope that Alexander might be her soulmate, but she knew it was unlikely. Very few people met their soulmate in high school. The likelihood of someone perfect for you, someone willing and able to mesh with you as you grew and changed, who you could fall in love with and work with for the rest of your life, happening to go to the same high school as you? Pretty low. The likelihood of that person happening to already be dating you? Even lower.

But that didn’t stop her from holding out hope. She believed that they had something special, something meant to be. Or at least she tried to believe. 

Alex was often distant and closed off. Eliza knew he didn’t share everything with her, that there were parts of his heart that he would never let her into. She’d made her peace with that long ago. But recently he’d often had a strange look in his eyes. She knew he was hiding something, but she couldn’t figure out what it might be. She’d tried to ask him about it, but he dodged questions he didn’t want to answer like a master, and so she’d dropped the subject. 

However, despite her recent misgivings, she at least knew Alex’s love for her was real. It shone through in all of their interactions, from the way his eyes lit up when he saw her to the way he lingered for a while after he really should’ve gone home by now. The future was uncertain, but Alex was there for now, and she was going to make the most of him while it lasted.

“Will the pancakes be ready soon?” she said to her dad suddenly.  
“Be patient, Liza. They cook when they cook. You can’t rush them.”  
“Just make sure you don’t end up burning them like you did on Peggy’s birthday.”  
“I only burned the first batch!”  
“Yeah, but the next two were overcooked,” shouted Peggy from the stairs.  
“Give me a break! Pancakes are difficult, and I only make them four or five times a year!”  
“What’s all this about pancakes?” said Angelica, pushing past Peggy and moving into the kitchen to sit by Eliza. “More importantly, happy birthday, Eliza! You’re growing up!”  
“Pancakes are more important than Eliza’s birthday.”  
“Peggy! I’m insulted! You don’t care about your sister’s eighteenth birthday? She’s about to meet her soulmate and you’re focused on pancakes!”  
“Pancakes are my soulmate! Pancakes--”  
“--are ready,” said their dad, flipping lemon-blueberry pancakes onto plates with fruit salad. “Peggy, can you bring all this to the table?”  
“All right. But only because it’s Eliza’s birthday and she shouldn’t have to get up,” she said, placing a plate of food, silverware, and a cup of coffee in front of Eliza.  
“Thanks so much, Peggy!”

Yup, Eliza definitely had a lot of things to worry about, but for now, fighting with Peggy over the syrup, listening to Angelica rant about politics, and using her birthday-girl privileges to monopolize the pancakes, everything seemed to disappear. A golden morning when everything was perfect.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The squad is racing to Eliza's birthday party. John and Alex are overdramatic. Angelica is very perceptive.

“I’m gonna beat you there! Eat my dust, Hamilton!” shouted John, pedaling his bike faster.  
“Wow, that’s cold. I thought we were at least on first-name basis,” Alex replied.  
“Not when we’re competing! You’re dead to me until I defeat you! Get a move on, slowpoke!”  
“Oh, you’re dead to me. Sooner or later, I’ll catch up, and then you’ll be sorry!”  
“Guys, please… it is not important who gets to Eliza’s first, only that we do get there in time, correct?” said Lafayette, nearly shouting, riding several yards behind Alexander. “Must you two compete over everything?”  
“Yes!” John and Alex shouted in unison.   
Herc passed Lafayette, speaking loudly so that all three of the others could hear him. “I mean, whoever gets there first will get to talk to Eliza first, but we’re not going to start celebrating until everyone’s there, so there’s really nothing anyone else is missing by getting there later. John’s not that far ahead anyway.”   
“That doesn’t matter!” called Alexander. “It’s the principle of the thing! I’ve got to beat him there and put him back in his place!”  
“You’ve got no chance! I’m already way ahead of you. You’ve got to admit it, I’m faster.”  
“In your dreams!”  
They approached the turnoff that lead up to the Schuyler’s house. John turned onto it at a ridiculous speed, not even bothering to signal. Alex turned almost as fast, nearly colliding with John.   
“Whoa--”   
John leaned into the turn, avoiding a crash, but he shifted his weight too far. His bike toppled over and he landed, hard, on the asphalt.

It was almost beautiful, Alexander thought. The way his hair fell a few moments after his body hit the ground, like a trail of fire from a rocket. The look of shock on his face, followed by pain-- and oh that hit him in the gut and he stopped just a bit too fast and suddenly he was running towards him.

He stopped just short of tripping over John, who was sprawled out on the sidewalk.

There was blood beading on his lip and he was bent at odd angles, like a rag doll. His bike had fallen on top of him. For a moment Alex’s heart stopped. Alexander could hear Lafayette saying something in the background, but everything was blurred out except his closed eyes and the new rips in his clothes and the way he was just-- just lying there, face down and unmoving, shock-red blood against black asphalt.

This was not a good time for them to have to go to the emergency room. On a list of Top Ten Times Not to Get Badly Injured, Eliza’s birthday was probably number five.

And then John opened his eyes and grunted with pain and pushed his bike to the side, wincing as he stood and using Alex’s shoulder to boost himself up, and Alex began to think clearly again because John was fine, of course he was, but Alex still walked him up to the Schuyler’s house with an arm around his shoulders, just in case he wasn’t.

(They’d left both of their bikes behind, which Laf and Herc were not happy about. It is, unsurprisingly, difficult to walk uphill while wheeling two bikes each.)

Peggy answered the door. She saw John, torn clothes and blood and all, and gasped, her mouth open very wide with her hand over it, like a woman in a period drama. John burst out laughing so hard he had to lean into Alexander to avoid falling over. Angelica appeared behind Peggy. Surprise flashed across her face, followed quickly by resignation. 

“You’ll need help with that, I guess. What happened?”  
“Bike crash.”  
“We were racing.”  
“Of course. Well, let’s get you cleaned up. Peggy, why don’t you wait for the others to get here. I see them down the road a bit.”  
“I’ll stay here and wait for them too,” Alex said quickly.  
Angelica watched John’s gaze flicker to Alexander’s face. He almost looked hurt, somehow, when Alex pulled away from him. She beckoned John up the stairs before anything else could happen that she’d have to process. John followed her obediently, though he looked unwilling to climb the stairs; she wondered if it was for more reasons than his injuries. Angelica heard Peggy step through the doorway. She looked back and saw Peggy and Alexander sitting on the porch steps, Alexander staring into space, Peggy tapping her fingers on the deck to the beat of a song only she could hear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Angelica talk.
> 
> CW for scars, injuries, blood, and mentions of abuse.

“Wow, this is a lot of blood,” said Angelica as she leaned over to scrub the dirt out of a cut on John’s thigh. He was sitting on the counter in the upstairs bathroom, tapping his fingers on the marble countertop. His hands curled into fists when the soap entered the cut.

“Yeah. I know. I’m the one who crashed his bike and got scraped up because he had to beat his friend.”

“Why was that such a big deal, anyway?”

“It wasn’t. It shouldn’t have been. It was just a game.”

Angelica gestured at the bandaids on his knees, his torn-up shirt and scraped elbows. “You wouldn’t have risked this for a game. You’re not playing around.” 

John broke eye contact, fiddling with his rainbow bracelet. “I guess not, huh.”

“John.” 

“Angelica,” he countered with a shaky smile.

“Are we going to talk or are you going to continue to dodge me? We don’t have to discuss it if you don’t want to. I can finish patching you up in complete silence if that’s what you need, but I think you need to talk to someone and it might as well be me. So?” 

John kept his eyes away from her face, but he nodded, slowly. “As long as no one else knows.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

He drew a shaky breath. “He’s too much for me.” His words took a long time to melt into the air. “I can’t handle him. So I compete with him in the hope I’ll push him away, make him work to catch up with me so he might stop trying. But he doesn’t stop.” 

His eyes brimmed with tears. “I could have told him. Months ago, before he was dating Eliza. But I was too much of a coward. And Eliza’s my friend. I couldn’t do something like that to her. She deserves him.”

Angelica put her hand on his shoulder. “Look at me. Please.”

He raised his head and met her eyes. “John. Your worth is not determined by whether he likes you the way you want him to. You haven’t failed as a person. You’re a good guy. If he doesn’t like you, that’s a problem on his end.”

“I know. I know. But… thank you. I needed to hear that.”

“Anytime. Let’s get the rest of those cuts cleaned up.”

She worked quickly and skillfully. Angelica had helped her sisters (mostly Peggy) clean a fair number of scrapes when they were younger, and she hadn’t lost her touch. “All right. Looks like that’s everything, unless there are any scrapes on your back. Turn around, please.”

John lifted his feet onto the counter and turned his back to Angelica. The back of his shirt was grubby and torn in a few places. She could see blood seeping through the cloth covering his lower back. Angelica lifted his shirt up to his neck, quickly-- and froze.

John’s lower back was criss-crossed in every direction by scars: long red scratches parallel to his spine, trails of puckered skin across his lower back, deep purple splotches like bruises. There were a few fresh cuts from his fall here and there, but Angelica barely noticed them.

“John, what happened?”

“What? I fell off my bike, that’s what happened.”  
“No. What happened to your back?”

“Damn, did any of the scars reopen? That’s gonna be a whole other can of worms. Oh wait, the scars. Are you asking about the scars?”

“...Yes.”

John turned to face her and lifted his chin with the air of a practiced storyteller.

“Oh, yeah. Okay, so a few months ago, I was just minding my own business leaning against the toy-store window, definitely not waiting to see if Alex would coincidentally walk by and want to get ice cream, and this random dude on a bike-- I think his name was Theodore Jenkins or something, my dad sued his family but they had even better lawyers so he lost-- rode into me.”

Angelica looked slightly taken aback at this. John didn’t notice.

“And he was going pretty fast, so when he hit me it pushed me backwards hard enough that I fell backwards through the window-- through the window, and there was glass all over the place and then I also fell onto some glass animal things that were in the storefront. The guy who hit me wasn’t even injured, but I had to go to the hospital and now I’ve got scars for the rest of my life. The end.”

“Wow. That’s harsh. And also not what I was thinking. I feel like an idiot for jumping to conclusions.” 

“You thought I was abused.” He didn’t ask her. He met her eyes and says it straight out. The words hung in the air. She could hear the beads of his pride bracelet click together as he twists it idly around his wrist. The sound distracted her for a moment, but she probably wouldn’t have thought of a good response to that regardless. 

He sighed. “I have some issues with my dad. Of course I do. But he’s been there for me in the ways that mattered. When I came out, he came around in time. He’s never intentionally made me feel threatened. He was there when Mom died. During the hardest time of any of our lives, he was there. And I love him.”

“I’m sorry. For thinking that. And for saying it.”

“I forgive you.”

Neither of them said anything else until she’d finished bandaging him up. They went back downstairs in an uneasy silence.


End file.
